Winter Term 2009

ENGLISH 401/RELIGION 481: The English Bible: Its Literary Aspects and Influences

Course Description: The Bible is a book, a text: it is also a collection of texts of the most astonishing variety and range. Our first task will be to try to understand these works in terms both of form and content and then of the circumstances which occasioned and shaped them. We will also study how the Bible came to have its present form(s), and consider its transmission as text and as cultural influence. Students will be encouraged to study especially the literary influences of the Bible in authors of interest to them. The particular readings will be influenced by class needs: we shall surely include Genesis, Exodus, Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isiah, Hosea, Mark, The Acts of the Apostles, Romans, and the Apocalypse.

ENGLISH 483: Primo Levi and the Memory of Auschwitz

Primo Levi was a Jew from Torino who survived a year in Auschwitz. His books, which deal recurrently with this experience, arguably constitute one of the major moral and stylistic projects of this century. In this course we will discuss five of them: Survival at Auschwitz, The Reawakening, The Monkey's Wrench, The Periodic Table, and The Drowned and The Saved. We will also read selections from his poems. We will examine in particular his understanding of the role of memory and remembering in constituting social experience, and observe the ways in which he confronts the problem of writing about the unspeakable.

ENGLISH 497: Memoir and Social Crisis

Memoir involves the ordering of select memories into a pattern of meaning. Personal, at times urgent, at others coolly reticent, memoir views large historical events and social processes through the prism of individual consciousness. It assumes and asserts the value of the individual voice as giving privileged and immediate access to the ways in which events were experienced and assigned meaning. We will be reading two works from the period of African-American slavery, two from the Hololcaust, one from the Vietnam War, and two from the early AIDS crisis. Authors we will read and discuss include Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Primo Levi, Paul Steinberg, Sarah Nomberg-Przytyk, Monette, Tim O'Brien, and Edmund White.

Past Semesters

Fall Term 2008

ACABS 200/RELIGION 201: Introduction to World Religions

This course serves two main functions: the first of these is to provide an introductory sense of what is involved in the academic study of religion; the second, which will occupy almost the whole term, is to introduce the major religious traditions of the Near East, with emphasis on the development and major structures of Israelite Religion, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The course will keep two foci in view: one will have to do with the historical development of these religious traditions, their sacred texts and major personalities; the second will involve a comparative view of these traditions by analyzing their sense of the sacred in space, time, and text, their views on holy people. This is an introductory course: it is not necessary for students to have any previous experience in the study of religion.

ENGLISH 350: Questioning Heroic, Singing Romance

The course will focus on the reading and enjoyment of the dazzling variety of texts which made of the English tradition one of the major cultural streams in the West. At the same time we will explore the implications of these texts in and for political, social, and cultural history more generally. We will give special attention in 2008 to the ongoing rewriting of the heroic, with its shifting models of male and female excellence and to Romance with its artful fables of desire. Readings will range widely from Beowulf to Paradise Lost. Major time will be devoted to Chaucer, Marlowe, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton.

ENGLISH 367: Shakespeare's Principal Plays

Winter Term 2008

ENGLISH 401/RELIGION 481: The English Bible: Its Literary Aspects and Influences

See description above.

ENGLISH 371: Studies in Literature, 1600-1830

This course considers literature written within the context of one of the most turbulent and fertile stretches of Western cultural development, as individuals and communities attempted to define their identity in terms of religious commitment, the human ability to reason, the human ability to feel, or nation.

Authors whom we shall read include Defoe (Roxana), Dryden, Pope, Swift, Voltaire, Blake, Rousseau, Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson, Whitman, and Douglas. An especially exciting feature of this class will be the chance to note the emergence of American voice(s) within the cacophony and euphony of works written in English.

ENGLISH 483: Primo Levi and the Memory of Auschwitz

See description above.

Fall Term 2007

ACABS 200/RELIGION 201: Introduction to World Religions

See description above.

ENGLISH 317: The Arts of the Apocalypse

Course Description: For nearly two thousand years now, apocalyptic ideas have dominated theories about the shape of history and social experience. Up until about three centuries ago, those theories were almost exclusively focussed on God's will and ways in history. Since then, various secularizing models of historical experience have emerged, but have formed themselves deeply on the general shape of the apocalytic model. Apocalyptic ideas also have pervaded much artistic production-in poetry, in painting, in music, in drama and film. And notions of apocalypse are also deeply embedded in current discussions of the relations between Christianity and Islam.

In this course we will study first the emergence of apocalyptic ideas in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim materials, then we will follow the development of apocalyptic theories and representations in the works of such figures as Augustine, Dante, Savonarola, Botticelli, Michaelangelo, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Wagner, Verdi, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Lindsay, and in a variety of films.

ENGLISH 350: Questioning Heroic, Singing Romance

See description above.

Spring Term 2007

ENGLISH 367: Shakespeare's Principal Plays

See description above.

ENGLISH 469: Milton

This course on Milton will include reading and discussion of his major poetic works, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained; if time allows we will also look at Samson Agonistes. For extra credit within the grading of the course, students may read one of the major epic works in the tradition which they have done to this point: the Iliad, the Odyssey, or the Aeneid.

Winter Term 2007

ENGLISH 371: Studies in Literature, 1600-1830

See description above.

ENGLISH 401/RELIGION 481: The English Bible: Its Literary Aspects and Influences

See description above.

ENGLISH 483: Primo Levi and the Memory of Auschwitz

See description above.

Fall Term 2006

ENGLISH 367: Shakespeare's Principal Plays

See description above.

ENGLISH 370: Religion and Intellectual Strife

The European Reformation is a period of acute intellectual, political and social upheaval. The effects are felt throughout Europe. Concentrating on England, we will think about ways in which the questions raised by, or associated with, this period of profound social, intellectual and religious upheaval affect literature.

We will ask the following, among other, questions: How are religious strife and religious otherness presented in English Literature? Is there such a thing as atheism in the literature of the period? What does it look like? How do heretical ideas make their way into the literature? How are they presented? What is the relation between the reformation and progressive thought in the period? Do the period's notions of progressivism coincide with our own? What are attitudes towards religious toleration, secularism and intellectual aspiration? What are the great intellectual questions of the day? Possible readings from Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne, Raleigh, Wyatt, Bruno, Hariot, Copernicus, Luther, and others.

ENGLISH 483: Great Works of Literature

Early lectures in this course, open to the public as well as to enrolled students, will explore the three Shakespeare plays which will be at the focus of the Residency of the Royal Shakespeare Company at the University (Oct. 24-Nov. 12, 2006): Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest. Students in the course will be urged to attend a performance of each of the plays, and there will be available a limited number of reduced-rate tickets for each student registered in the course. If all goes well, we should be able to have members of the Company visit the class for discussion during their time here. After the Residency is over, we will continue to meet to analyze and discuss the performances.

RELIGION 201: Introduction to World Religions

See description above.

Winter Term 2006

ENGLISH 351: Studies in Literature, 1600-1830

This course considers literature written within the context of one of the most turbulent and fertile stretches of Western cultural development, as individuals and communities attempted to define their identity in terms of religious commitment, the human ability to reason, the human ability to feel, or nation.

Authors whom we shall read include Defoe (Roxana), Dryden, Pope, Swift, Voltaire, Blake, Rousseau, Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson, Whitman, and Douglas. An especially exciting feature of this class will be the chance to note the emergence of American voice(s) within the cacophony and euphony of works written in English.

ENGLISH 401/RELIGION 481: The English Bible: Its Literary Aspects and Influences

See description above.

ENGLISH 483: Primo Levi and the Memory of Auschwitz

See description above.

Fall Term 2005

ENGLISH 367: Shakespeare's Principal Plays

See description above.

ENGLISH 371: Studies in Literature, 1600-1830

See description above.

RELIGION 201: Introduction to World Religions

See description above.

Summer Term 2005

ENGLISH 367: Shakespeare's Principal Plays

See description above.

ENGLISH 371: Studies in Literature, 1600-1830

See description above.

Winter Term 2005

ENGLISH 351: Studies in Literature, 1600-1830

See description above.

ENGLISH 401/RELIGION 481: The English Bible: Its Literary Aspects and Influences

See description above.

ENGLISH 483: Primo Levi and the Memory of Auschwitz

See description above.

Fall Term 2004

ENGLISH 367: Shakespeare's Principal Plays

See description above.

ENGLISH 370: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature

Course Description: This course will engage with literature from Beowulf to Paradise Lost. Our major theme for 2004 will be the way in which even the first of these represents a reworking of powerful earlier traditions, and then is available to later works which contest its authority. We will study 'tradition,' in short, and the ways by which 'the Last' becomes 'the Next.'

We shall read some of the most dazzlingly interesting and beautifully constructed works in any language at any time. We will start with Beowulf, and continue with works by (among others) Chaucer, Marlowe, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton. The course will involve much discussion, some group projects, and (for those who wish to do so) a special hour set aside each week to discuss Shakespeare's Sonnets in the context of the European and English sonnet tradition.

RELIGION 201: Introduction to World Religions

See description above.

Winter Term 2004

ENGLISH 371: Studies in Literature, 1600-1830 [Honors]

See description above.

ENGLISH 401/RELIGION 481: The English Bible: Its Literary Aspects and Influences

See description above.

ENGLISH 483: Primo Levi and the Memory of Auschwitz

See description above.

Fall Term 2003

ENGLISH 367: Shakespeare's Principal Plays

See description above.

ENGLISH 370: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature

See description above.

RELIGION 201: Introduction to World Religions

See description above.

Winter Term 2003

English 317: The Arts of the Apocalypse

See description above.

ENGLISH 401/RELIGION 481. The English Bible: Its Literary Aspects and Influences, I.

See description above.

ENGLISH 483: Primo Levi and the Memory of Auschwitz

See description above.

ENGLISH 483: The Plays of the Royal Residency

This one-credit hour course will present an analysis of the plays which the Royal Shakespeare Company will perform this Winter Term (2003) during their residency at the University of Michigan. The course will meet on Monday evenings throughout the term, and consider, in order, the stage adaptation of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, and two plays of Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Coriolanus." The course will involve some guest lecturers, including some members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. It is strongly urged that all take advantage of the opportunity to view the three plays.